‘They that have seen thy look in death, No more may fear to die.'
WHEN Hubert recovered consciousness, he was lying on the settle. Nänchen, Fritz, and Vaclav were beside him; an older woman, Nänchen’s mother, was there also. They had drawn up the settle near the seat where he was, and managed, not without much difficulty, to get him laid down upon it. A mixture of strong and most disagreeable odors showed that they had been trying to restore him by various methods in vogue at the time, though neither very pleasant nor very efficacious. When at last she saw him stir and open his eyes, Nänchen murmured a fervent ‘Thank God!’ and put wine to his lips. He drank a little, and felt revived; the color began to return to his face.
‘Good, good,' said the old woman encouragingly. ‘Now is the time for thy strong soup, my daughter. Give him some of that, but carefully, little by little.'
Nänchen brought the soup, which was excellent, in a pewter cup, so well polished that it shone like silver. But Hubert turned from it with a shudder. By this time he remembered everything.
‘I cannot eat or drink today,' he said.
So said my Robert this morning ere he went forth. "Don't be vexed with me, Nänchen," these were his words, "but I cannot break bread today until I know that he is eating bread in the kingdom of God." ‘That is why I made the soup for him, that when he comes back—but when will that be, I wonder? Woe is me, but it is the long, long day! It seems like half a lifetime. And no one comes to tell us what is doing yonder.'
‘What hour is it now? '
‘That I cannot tell you, sir. Most days I can guess the hour right easily. But this is like no day I have ever known before. I know not if it be midday, or afternoon, or nearing the sunset.'
‘It is sunset already,' broke in Vaclav, who was standing at the window. ‘Look yonder, over the houses! The sky is red.'
Nänchen went to the window, and looked, but turned away with white face and quivering lips.
‘That glow is from no setting sun,' she said.
Hubert raised himself, stood upright upon his feet, then, in spite of pain and weakness, knelt down.
‘O God,' he prayed, ‘have mercy upon Thy servant. Be with him now in his agony.' Nänchen, her mother, and Fritz knelt with him and prayed; but little Vaclav stood yet by the window, looking from one to another with awe-struck, wondering eyes. He did not understand. The old woman told her beads, and said Paters and Ayes aloud, the others prayed silently. Vaclav would not interrupt them. He looked out again, and watched the strange fitful red that came and went in the sky. As he watched the truth dawned upon him. With a child's piteous, broken-hearted wail he turned away. That cry startled them all, and they rose up. ‘Poor child!’ said the old woman compassionately. ‘Nänchen, we ought to take him home to his parents.'
But Nänchen, who knew who he was, shook her head, and murmured, ‘Not yet.'
Vaclav came over to Hubert, who had sunk upon the seat again, and, putting his arms round his neck, leant his head against his shoulder, and wept bitterly. All the others kept silence, scarcely even stirring hand or foot. Fritz stood at the window and looked out, but Nänchen had turned her back upon that dreadful light; and the old woman seemed only to be thinking of the weeping boy, whom she watched with pitying eyes.
Some time passed thus; then a quick strong step was heard on the stairs. ‘Robert!’ cried Nänchen, and everyone turned to the door.
Robert came in, very pale, but with his head erect, and his eyes shining with a strange new light. He looked round on the group in silence, showing no surprise at the presence of Hubert and Vaclav, indeed, hardly noticing them. He seemed struggling to find words for what he wanted to tell. At last he said, very calmly and simply, ‘He is with Christ.'
Then there burst from the lips of Hubert the one question that was burning in his heart. ‘Was Christ with him to the end? '
‘Was the Son of God with those three who walked unhurt in the furnace? '
‘Ah, but nowadays He does not quench the violence of fire,' sobbed Nänchen.
‘That is not the best that He can do. Wait—give me but a moment's breathing space—and I will tell you all.
The time was long—hours seemed to pass while we stood watching and waiting there by that Ring in the Brühl—and still he came not. There were many delays. First, they stopped him before the bishop's palace, that he might see the burning of his books, at which he smiled, for he knew that they could never burn his words out of the hearts of men.'
‘Who told you that?’ asked Fritz.
‘One of the men-at-arms, who had been with him all the way, told us everything afterward. The crowds were great, so great that they feared the little bridge outside the Göttlingen Gate would break down, and made the whole eight hundred soldiers pass over it singly, man by man. And they kept back the townsfolk at the gate, and would not let them go on at all. They did wisely there. For so noble was his bearing, so devout and earnest were his prayers, that the hearts of the people were moved. There were angry cries and murmurs amongst them, because they saw no confessor with him—a boon not denied to the vilest. So he was offered this grace; and our Master Ulrich Schorand, who chanced to be close at hand, was brought to him.'
‘Schorand so near! Ah, why could I not have kept beside him?’ cried Hubert.
‘But Master Schorand refused to hear him,' pursued Robert, unless he would retract. "A heretic," he said, "could neither give nor receive the Sacraments." '
Master Schorand has heard his last confession from me, ‘then,' said Nänchen's mother. ‘What ailed him to be so pitiless? '
‘Well, it mattered not; he could not hurt him,' Robert said gently. He prayed often and chanted Psalms, especially the fifty-first and the thirty-first. As he drew near we heard his voice, and caught the words distinctly—"Into Thy hands I commend my spirit, for Thou halt redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." Being come into the Ring, and going up to the stake, he knelt and prayed—"Lord Jesus Christ, help me to bear this death of pain and shame, which for Thy name and Word's sake I willingly encounter. And forgive my enemies for this their sin." Then he rose up, and—oh, Nänchen, he spoke to us! '
‘So they let him speak to the people at last—at last!' cried Hubert. ‘And I not there!'
‘No, master, they did not. They only just let him say that he died for no heresy or error, but because he had preached the true word of God. A word more than that they would not let him utter. But, Nänchen '—he turned to her with eyes full of light—light that shone through tears—' I have his farewell, his thanks, to keep forever.'
‘You? Did he speak to you? Oh, Robert, how I envy you!’ said Hubert.
Robert bowed his head.
He saw us as we stood there, Jacob and Gregory being with me, and the men from the other prisons. In his gentle, courteous way, he asked leave of the executioners to speak to us. So they led him near to us, for we could not enter the Ring. Oh, Nänchen, the face that I have often seen so full of pain and weariness was bright with joy! He said to us—"Dear brothers"—yes, those were his very words—he called us brothers. "Dear brothers, I give you great thanks for the many kindnesses you have shown me during my long imprisonment. Not my keepers have you been, but my brothers. Know also that this very day, as I steadfastly believe, I shall rejoice in heaven with my blessed Savior, for whose Name's sake I suffer this death." '
A sob checked the voice of Robert, and he covered his face. He knew well that though the martyr's thanks had been for all, as indeed all had deserved them, his last farewell look, and the last touch of his hand, had been for the best and dearest friend God gave him in the prison, still known to us as one named ‘Robert.'
‘Go on, Robert,' said Hubert at last, in little more than a whisper.
Robert went on, speaking very quietly, and without looking up.
During the long, slow, horrible preparations, he stood unmoved and calm, holding communion with God in prayer. Once he smiled—when in scorn and mockery they brought a foul and rusty chain to bind his neck to the stake. "My Savior," said he, "was bound with a far more cruel chain for me, and shall I be ashamed of this one? Nay, I will bear it gladly for His sake!" When at last all was done, all was undone again, and changed, at the bidding of some who said that a heretic ought not to die with his face to the east. So again they bound him to the stake, this time with his face towards the setting sun. Better so! The wicked city was behind him—God's pure sky, and in the distance His everlasting hills, before his eyes. Then, once more, he had to put aside the cup of life which was offered to his lips. Two great princes, sent by the Kaiser himself, came spurring in hot haste to the Ring. The executioner, who was already standing torch in hand, paused whilst they prayed him, with earnest and pitying words, to retract. He answered them with a glad voice, "I call God to witness that I have not taught anything contrary to His truth, but in all my preaching, teaching, and writing I have endeavored to turn men from their sins, and to bring in the kingdom of God. The truths that I have taught in accordance with the Word of God I will now maintain, and willingly seal with my death.”
The princes wrung their hands and withdrew. I saw the executioner raise his torch, and then—my strength failed me. I hid my face—but still that fearful glow came through my clasped hands. Presently I heard his voice—brave, clear, and firm—and then I looked again without fear—God's peace was with him still—"Christ, Thou Son of God, have mercy upon me!" This he chanted twice; but at the third time the flame rose up and caught his face, and no sound reached us save the Name he loved so well— "Christ— Son of God"—his last word to us. For a little while, in which you might have said two or three Paternosters, his lips moved as if in quiet prayer. Then he bowed his head, and went home to God.'
There was a great silence. At last the voice of Vaclav broke it.
‘Then it was not dreadful after all,' he said.
‘It was not dreadful, so far as we could see. Whatever it was to him, already he has forgot it all. Now, while we speak, he is looking on the face of Christ.’
‘It is we who will not forget,' cried Václav, the youngest there. ‘Never, never, so long as we live! '
‘Nor our children, nor our children's children,' said Robert.
But Hubert thought of the words of that glorious Psalm which the martyr sang on his way to death. Half unconsciously he said them aloud: “Oh, how great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee, which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the sons of men!" '
So closed over the town of Constance that eventful sixth of July—' a day to be much remembered.' Much remembered in truth it was in the after years. Well spake the boy Václav— ‘Never, never,' did the faithful in Bohemia forget their saint and martyr, who for their sakes laid down his life so willingly. His name remained a word of power, a spell to stir the deepest chords of feeling. With a quenchless love profound' they kept his death-day sacred, alike in the halls of nobles and the lowly huts of peasants. Warriors kept it by many a watch-fire, on the eve of many a well-fought field; and it made them strong to strike for vengeance and for freedom. Martyrs—and of these there were a great multitude, truly a noble army—remembered it in their agony, and prayed for grace to follow in his footsteps. After the lapse of nearly five centuries it is not forgotten yet. The noble Church of the United Brethren ' which sprang from his ashes still observes her martyr's memorial day throughout the whole world, wherever her hand has held up the standard of the cross. And where has she not uplifted that saving sign?
In the snows of Greenland and Labrador, amongst ‘Negroes, Hottentots, and Esquimaux,' in the lazar-houses of lepers, in the wilds of America and Australia—lands of which he never knew—the ‘painters' of his prophetic dream, ever painting the face of Christ, pause on each sixth of July to remember his conflict and his victory.
Nor has his native land, the land he loved so well, ceased to cherish his memory, even though the light he kindled in her has been once and again all but extinguished in the blood of her best and bravest children. Every true Bohemian, whatever his creed may be, still loves and reverences Bohemia's martyr-hero; whilst the faithful remnant, inheritors of those who have held fast the truth from his time even until now, keep every year upon his death-day the birthday of their Church.
Does he know all this now? Would he rejoice in it if he did? Not in the earthly fame; no doubt he little reeks who wreathes the brow that Christ has crowned already; but certainly in this, that through him Christ is, and has been, and will be preached. As it was given him to be made like unto his Lord in suffering, so, as we dare to think, he tastes also of His joy. Of the servant as of the Master is it true that he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. 'I too,' said he, ‘shall rejoice with exceeding joy, when I awake in the resurrection.'
Amen, so let it be! Waiting in hope, we also are satisfied—satisfied for him, and for the other saints and heroes of the olden days. What is harder, we are satisfied for own beloved ones who are with them now within the veil, in mysterious, but most blessed communion, as to each we hear the charge and the benediction—' Go thy way till the end be, for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot in the end of the days.’